Dance
On that cold night, the night they buried Alex Masters, I danced. I closed my eyes and moved with what seemed to me like my arms and legs and the whole of me turning to water and felt the cool summer breeze on my face. I was just as upset as anyone else but this was my way of mourning. They cried; I danced. It made me feel closer to her in a way. It made me feel like, as I pounded my feet on the cold ground in rhythm with the music that eventually my body would start to fall apart and turn itself into stars and I would simply float up into the heavens and Alex, wherever she was, would be there.
I wasn't alone that night. But I don't think the others felt the same way I did. This was a party for them. Just another excuse to burn their brain cells through drinking. But as I continued listening to the music, they grew farther and farther away. I was drifting from them. Could it have happened? No, my body hadn't turned to water or stars and I was still left dancing by myself in the field. The rest of them were talking. About Alex, probably.
"Such a shame."
"She was really bright girl, too bright for this world I guess."
"To think such a pretty little thing would go and stick her head in the oven."
I really did miss her. I wish I had have been there when she had done it. I wanted to ask her why. We weren't best friends or anything but we knew each other well enough. I wanted to know what her reason would be for killing herself in such a brutal way. She said she wanted to be a poet when she got older and she used to joke about how that would kill her one day, like so many of her heroes.
I didn't think she was serious. I guess no one did. But really, when someone says they are going to kill themselves how do you react? You either assume it's a joke or you put them on suicide watch and lock them in their house. There is no middle ground.

But I kept dancing. I was wearing headphones, so it was easy to tune out everything around me.

My grandmother, with her olive skin and grey eyes, used to tell me legends from around the world. She herself was impossible to place as being a member of any of the races that she told me about. With her implacable accent that sounded like an amalgam of countless dialects, she was indefinite, she was timeless.
"When someone dies," she said slowly, "it is not the end." She paused for a moment and pushed her fingers against each other, "an old story says that, when we die, our bodies fall to the ground and become soil again. But our souls," she smiled, deepening the slight creases forming on her face, "our souls rise up to the sky so far until they find the one place in the sky that brings them infinite joy. They stay there, you know. They stay there and burn brightly with this ecstacy until the end of time. "
And I continued dancing. I moved my arms and my legs as fast as I could. Everything around me melted in a blur of green and purple and red and orange and I didn't want to stop. I was being pulled along by invisible strings, every move making my muscles feeling lighter and lighter. This was a ritual. This was tradition. Suddenly, I felt my body turn to air and I became ageless. I kept dancing. This was tradition. This was a dance. This was a dance of rememberance. I was dancing. I was dancing for Alex, another girl who killed herself for a reason no one could find. I was dancing for my grandmother, with the olive skin and the steel eyes and the tongue that touched every part of this world. I was dancing for me and my friends and everyone in this world so that each of us, each one of us, would find our place in the sky and, because of my movements, because of the sincerity of my dance, would be allowed to stay there and burn brightly for all time.
And I knew. I knew that all stars burn out after some time. But now, my body was air and I was dancing with complete sincerity and my movements would carry and fan the blazing flames of each star and make them something more, glorify them into immortality. I danced and I spun. I felt like I was leaving the ground and drifting away into the infinite shimmering blackness of the night sky, but the song ended and I was again on the ground, surrounded by all those people I knew. All of those people who were here to remember a girl. A girl whose name would eventually be forgotten. A girl who, like any other, wanted to be noticed. A girl who wanted to part of something.
When I fell to the ground, holding my aching legs and smiling, I couldn't help but think that now she was.
But each of us knew that we were on the verge of overstaying our time in that place that been filled with the magic of the new memory of Alex that united us there. We knew that were we to stay any longer that the memory would let itself inside each of us and then we would expel it again and it would be tainted forever, with the images of each of us etched upon it.
Everyone helped to clean up before leaving. Beer bottles and fast food wrappers on the ground. Everyone knew to leave this place as it was. Without a trace of our being here.
None of us spoke during that time. We all simply picked up the garbage and placed it wherever we could. In our cars, in our pockets. There were no garbage cans. We simply picked it up and placed it somewhere where it would not be seen.
But then, when we were finished, everyone simply stood silently, staring at each other. Eyes connected with other eyes. Strangers and friends. Enemies and family. We all looked at each other and it didn't matter who our eyes met with, we were all staring at the same person. We were all staring at someone who had been forever changed by their night here. By the pure, innocent magic of the memory of Alex Masters. Each of us smiled. One by one, a large beaming, collective smile. We stood there for what felt like an hour. Saying nothing. Not moving. Just smiling.
And we looked up and we saw nothing but stars.

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KB.